Archive for August 17th, 2017

From an Industry Alert today. (Note: I didn’t post it when announced yesterday on the MTAC User Group on Informed Visibility call, had to wait for something in writing before sharing).

IMb Tracing Support for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Extended

The Postal Service has extended the date for IMb Tracing and Informed Visibility (IV) for customers who utilize non-secure FTP from September 30, 2017 to November 30, 2017 to allow them more time to transition to secure options within Informed Visibility (IV). On December 1, 2017 the Postal Service will no longer support FTP for mailers enrolled in IMb Tracing or Informed Visibility (IV) and all users must have converted to a secure option within IV. The IV application has functionality to assist the mailing industry to transition to SFTP.

To anyone tracking mail – my advice is, do not switch to Informed Visibility piece tracking until the data is stabilized, and when you do go in, go in eyes-wide-open that much of the system is untested, and you will be testing live in production for some time. If you are working with a 3rd Party service provider, it is imperative that you coordinate carefully with them.

USPS chose to end the pilot prematurely, knowing full well there are still serious, outstanding data issues including latency, and that the interface itself is untested. This move was against industry advisement in several arenas. The emails from USPS urging you to switch appear to be disingenuous and are purposefully misleading. The additional time granted in the Industry Alert is a direct result of industry pressure to keep the IMb Tracing data flowing so that industry can continue to work USPS data issues. Without the IMb Tracing to validate the Informed Visibility data, users of the critical data have no way of knowing if they are getting at the very least the same data they were getting in IMb Tracing.

Contact me directly at Lisa.Bowes@intelisent.com if you have questions, or need more information. Stay tuned for more to come on this…